Nambucca Heads Island

Laid out on Stuart Island, close to where the Nambucca River spills into the Pacific Ocean, the fairways at Nambucca Heads Island Golf Club occupy just about every available square metre of a compact 80-acre coastal property.

Located just a 10-minute drive off the Pacific Motorway, the original 9-hole course on the island was established shortly after the end of World War II. The club then extended this layout to eighteen holes in 1992, somehow managing to shoe-horn an additional nine into a very tight space.

Surrounded by water on every side, Nambucca Heads Island Golf Club has to be one of the most picturesque public golf courses in Australia, where you might be lucky enough to enjoy your round while watching dolphins swim by with ospreys and sea eagles flying overhead.

The 5,130-metre layout plays to a par of 69, with six par threes (three on each returning nine) and three par fives on the scorecard. It’s a flat, easy walk on fairways lined with she oak and paper bark trees and putting surfaces comprise quality bent grass greens.

Feature holes include the 130-metre 5th and 120-metre 13th (both played over ponds to sand-protected greens), the severely left doglegged 11th, the demanding par four 16th (rated stroke index 1), and the closing par three 18th, which is somehow squeezed in next to the car park.